In Barcelona, it has been two intense days. The poor Pope, after the Canary Islands excursion with the final failure of the broken plane (what a ridiculous, Iberia airline!), looked tired, and I thought he was limping a bit. But the job of a pope involves these things. In Spain, which was the excuse so that the papal visit was not solely Catalan and Gaudí-related, they did everything they could to make a good impression. The king and queen – the queen with the white privilege – and all the fuss of bishops and cardinals. In Catalonia, it was a bit different, because here we have a bit more good taste and know how to do things a bit better. In fact, the Catalan visit had two main stages: Montserrat and the Sagrada Família. What surprised me was that the Montserrat event consisted of praying the rosary. Such an unliturgical prayer! But Montserrat is no longer what it was, even though the choir offered a spectacle worthy of the abbey's best times, the glorious times of Abbot Escarré. The choir appeared full: bishops and cardinals and singers, instead of monks; because, of monks, there are fewer and fewer every day...

Unlike failure, success has many fathers, and if the success is great, like the one a few days ago at the Sagrada Família, it even gets uncles, like minister Óscar Puente, who has taken advantage of the unforgettable images from that night to attack the mayor of Madrid and the president of the Community: “What we have seen these days is that Barcelona continues to be the one with the magical Olympics of '92... Almeida and Ayuso, worthy heirs of Botella”; from which it would follow that socialism is modernity and the right is stale.

These days Antoni Gaudí is celebrating. June 13th is Saint Anthony of Padua. Patron of bricklayers, master builders, constructors, of armchair psychoanalysts and mortar. You can find Gaudí at the very top of his friend Jesus's tower. Celebrating on life's scaffolding. Having an oily herring sandwich, a cold beer, and the dessert of an eternal roll. Do you see him?

In the eighties of the last century, being naturally sociable and living in the US, I had a story to tell about where I came from. It included two observations about Barcelona that are shocking today. One was the ethnic homogeneity of the population. During a sabbatical in Barcelona in '81, an Indian student I was supervising for his doctoral thesis visited me. He was Sikh and, therefore, covered his head with a turban. When he went out on the street, people stared at him, and someone even asked him where he had gotten a bed of nails to sleep on. The other, which will be the focus of this article, was that, referring to the phenomenon of tourism in Catalonia, I noted that it extended along the entire Catalan coast except in Barcelona, where it was absent. Tourists avoided it with almost surgical precision.

Everyone I know is trying to decide whether they are satisfied, or not, with the Pope's visit and the enthronement of Antoni Gaudí as a global icon. I also live in contradiction, because Leo XIV says things I like but represents an institution that seems archaic, hypocritical, and opaque to me. But after the superlative spectacle of the Sagrada Família, I believe the papal visit has a clear winner, and it's not so much Leo XIV as the Barcelona-Catalonia binomial, a territory of roots and modernity, of dreams and revolts, which with its oily identity challenges the political and religious limits that uselessly try to bridle it. So much so that on Thursday, seeing the kings of Spain on TV, I didn't feel they were there to appropriate everything, as always, but rather they seemed small, small before the great modernist bastion, watching helplessly the takeoff of a superior form of Catalanity, which is too old, too modern, too beautiful, and too delirious to find a place in such a worn-out container as monarchical and constitutional Spain. Felipe's face said: I'm here as just another tourist.I am probably going further than Gaudí himself, so Catalan but so ecumenical, would wish. But I allow myself to recall the comment he made after Miguel de Unamuno visited the temple and confessed that he did not like it: “No Spaniard likes it”. The celestial appearance of the master from Reus by means of drones, observing the culmination of his work, was a triumphant image, the triumph of the solitary madman, the typical Catalan dreamer, who is greater than kings and popes, and who gives us a seal, a tattoo on the skin of the country, at a time when the country, and its capital, is at risk of becoming dull, with the fear of not recognizing oneself and of not identifying one's roots and those things that give it meaning, above centuries and people.Precisely, the people who attended the event at the Sagrada Família, who are the same people who have followed all the Pope's events, were perfect representatives of the ultracatholic contingent of the country: the high Barcelona bourgeoisie (more like fans of the Burgos Cathedral), the Pope's youth from Opus Dei schools and a profuse representation of Latin American communities, too recent to understand the depth of the foundations of the Sagrada Família. In general, they were all papal enthusiasts, people little or not at all connected with Gaudí's universe and all the cultural, religious, architectural, and civil substratum behind it. All these sectors also form today's Catalonia, and all of them, willingly or not, were swallowed, like luxury extras, by the visual and sonic wave, inevitably Catalan by the force of facts and centuries, and projected as such, immediately, throughout the world.Gaudí is also inevitably Catalan, and his work is explained not only by him, but by the country that saw him born. But his charm is that he combines with everything; he is admired by Catholics and secular people from the five continents. Sharing him with the world is a joy and a privilege, because the world wants him as he is, that is, Catalan. And since he is already dead, there is no danger that Madrid will steal him from us through scrapes and tax rebates, as they almost did with Salvador Dalí, another dreamer more Catalan than a whip, who admired Gaudí and considered himself his brother even by his surname (gaudir and delir are synonymous words). But Dalí, avid for dollars, did not precisely aspire to sainthood, and faced with the political absurdity of his century, he ended up disguising himself as a Francoist, which was perhaps the most surreal (and the most practical) thing he could think of. This earned him the posthumous homage, of course, of Albert Boadella. There is no danger that he will do the same with Gaudí.

The Passeig de Gràcia Association has recognized the Constructora del Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Família Board and the Archbishop of Barcelona, Joan Josep Omella, with the XIX Friend of Passeig de Gràcia Award for their contribution to "culminating" Antoni Gaudí's masterpiece and most universal project and for "ambitiously facing the city's great future challenges". The award ceremony coincided with a particularly significant moment for the Sagrada Família: the centenary of the death of the so-called architect of God and Pope Leo XIV visited Barcelona to bless the completion of the Jesus tower, which has been "a historic moment that strengthens the international projection" of the Catalan capital.The awards were collected at the Majestic Hotel & Spa Barcelona by the delegate president of the Construction Board, Esteve Camps, and Monsignor David Abadías, auxiliary bishop of Barcelona, representing Cardinal Joan Josep Omella, who accompanied the pontiff on his trip to Catalonia. "These awards are a recognition of all the people who have worked for decades to make Antoni Gaudí's dream a reality and to complete a work that belongs to Barcelona and the world," Abadías stated.The president of the Passeig de Gràcia Association, Lluís Sans, explained that the completion of the temple will represent "much more than the culmination of an architectural work": "It is a historic opportunity to demonstrate Barcelona's ability to think big and project itself to the world with confidence, excellence, and a vision for the future". During his speech, Sans assured that the Sagrada Família is "probably the best ambassador Barcelona has in the world" and that everyone has "the responsibility to live up to its legacy". "We know that Gaudí's project to create a park on the three blocks up to Diagonal will not be realized, but we do ask for an ambitious project at the level of the global icon that the Sagrada Família has become," he stated. In this regard, the president of the association stressed that "the same breadth of vision" needed to complete the Sagrada Família is what "Barcelona needs today" to be "a safe, competitive city, open to the world and capable of leading again through culture, innovation, and creativity".Shops open on Sunday?

Sans has also defended a city that continues to attract talent, investment, and economic activity, that preserves its heritage and commercial identity, and that offers services and infrastructure like major international capitals. Hence, he has stated that it would be necessary to "reinforce commercial dynamism" by opening shops on Sundays, improve mobility to "guarantee access to the Eixample also by private vehicle" and "recover the splendor" of the emblematic spaces "that define Barcelona's identity".In this regard, on the issue of security, Sans has positively assessed a decrease in thefts in Barcelona, which he has attributed to the expansion of police forces, operational improvements, and "the expansion of the judicial staff," but has argued that there is "an abuse of the right to demonstrate." And in the area of housing, he has questioned whether to "renounce the offer of tourist apartments," as it is "essential" to maintain the capacity to host business, academic, medical, and tourist activity.

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Wednesday evening saw the most apotheotic act of Pope Leo XIV's visit. The spectacle of the inauguration of the tower of Jesus was the celebration that connected most with civil society for its beauty and its link with Gaudí's architecture. Before this majestic moment, in the afternoon, public television channels delved into the events at the Sagrada Família. The broadcast on La 1 of TVE, with Pepa Bueno and Gemma Nierga, maintained a more formal tone, aware of when to speak and of the value of silence, without letting themselves be drawn into affectation. On La 2 Cat, in addition to the preliminaries with Oriol Nolis and Cristina Villanueva, they offered the ceremony with the utmost sobriety, with excellent Crisol Tuà and Anna Solé providing commentary. On TV3, the wait for the Pope's arrival with Toni Cruanyes and Núria Moliner was very well-crafted, especially the architectural content. But perhaps they wanted to do too many things at once. They exceeded themselves by dividing the screen into three and adding a graphic line that marred the image, crudely imitating Gaudí's theme. It looked like a PowerPoint template. Xavier Grasset took over with the start of the mass with an excess of rhetoric that often forgot the importance of the image and of silence. Beyond the mass, the event at the Sagrada Família connected with poetry in two moments: that of Valentina, the blind girl who explained the details of the cross of Jesus, and the moment the Pope lit a candle before Gaudí's tomb. Spirituality goes beyond sermons.The unforgettable and dazzling moment arrived with the dusk, after blessing the tower. A perfect calculation of the exact time. TV3 demonstrated its talent and quality in an excellent production. It was precise and majestic. It was as if Gaudí had foreseen the audiovisual and media potential of his great work. The fusion of light, music, and image was masterful. A show so well-crafted that it perfectly managed unforeseen events and last-minute changes. The perfect synergy with the production allowed a decisive element to finally appear that we had not yet seen since the Pope set foot in the State: mysticism. Beauty generated emotions that could be shared by citizens in a transversal way, without obliging religious convictions or the use of words. The pulses of light endowed the Sagrada Família with a soul, and the spectators, thanks to television as a privileged window, witnessed how spirituality crossed the basilica from top to bottom. Neither celebrities nor the rhetoric of experts, more old-fashioned than the Pope, are needed to move people. The use of drones with Gaudí's face contemplating his work was a symbolic way to bless the architectural epic in another way. "First love, then technique" is a message for everyone. If Gaudí were to lift his head, he would have seen the sublime hour of his work.

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Miquel Barceló's exhibitions always generate a lot of anticipation. The one dedicated to him by the Artur Ramon Art gallery starting this Friday generates even more: Barceló is one of the three artists who a few months ago presented a project for the facade of the Glory of the Sagrada Familia, along with Cristina Iglesias and Javier Marín, and the exhibition will open its doors three days after the inauguration of the tower of Jesus by Leo XIV. It is his first exhibition of unpublished work in a Barcelona gallery since 1990. It may seem like a very calculated operation, but Barceló explained this Thursday that, simply, "the moment has come and it makes sense." "I don't really like having exhibitions in a gallery, I prefer painting. There's nothing strange about that," he added after patiently posing for photographers. Previously, gallerist Artur Ramon had asked that questions be focused on the exhibition, which includes about thirty prints, and not on the "media noise" generated by a potential collaboration of Barceló with the basilica.

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The first thing to say about the evening when the Pope blessed the tallest tower of the Sagrada Família is that we witnessed a moment for the history of the city and the country, because Gaudí's figure was recognized with a creative spectacularity (Igor Cortadellas) that was up to the monument and because the television broadcast (TV3, Paulí Subirà) was also up to the professional passion of the architect of God.

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Thirty-four years later, Barcelona is once again dazzling the world while Madrid sees that three decades of turbo-capitalism and concentration of resources and power have not served it to shorten distances with the Catalan capital when it comes to achieving a global impact like that of 1992. Thirty-four years later, Madrid has not only not had the Olympic Games, but has had to see how the blessing ceremony of the tower of Jesus of the Sagrada Família by Leo XIV has taken all the praise and headlines in the world press and left the visit of the Pope himself to the Spanish capital a few days earlier in an absolute second place. And this without going into comparing the quality of what has been seen in Catalonia in recent days (cathedral, Lluís Companys stadium, Brians, Montserrat and Sant Agustí) with the events in Madrid, particularly the performances with an evangelistic air at the Santiago Bernabéu.

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The show had not yet ended and everyone already had it clear that the blessing of the Sagrada Família's Jesus tower would be one of the images of the year. This Thursday, the front pages of the world's press certified it. As in the '92 Olympic Games, Barcelona once again showed itself splendid in a global ceremony. The day after the event, it was easy to overhear conversations everywhere about the impressive effect of the drones recreating the figure of Antoni Gaudí or the beauty of the light show. Comments that, often, oscillated between pride in the image offered and reservations about whether this could lead to an increase in tourism in the Catalan capital.

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More than 140 years after the laying of the first stone, even today, what is considered Antoni Gaudí's masterpiece continues to take shape. In the final years of his prolific career, he poured all his efforts into building a temple that has today become Barcelona's main tourist attraction. Thousands of people visit it every year, and there seems to be a widespread consensus on its architectural and cultural value. However, the building has not been without controversy, starting with the fact that some question whether what we see today is what Gaudí would have done.

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It cannot be said of Antoni Gaudí that he would have imagined in his dreams that, a century after his death, the Pope would come expressly from Rome to bless the tallest tower of the Sagrada Família. Because if Gaudí had one thing, it was that he dreamed big. Very big, the biggest, what they told him seemed impossible, to be exact. As in the first reading, Gaudí saw "a new heaven and a new earth." Today there is no temple in the contemporary world that can be compared to the Sagrada Família. And for this reason, today, at the foot of his tomb, all the authorities have gathered, the Catalan, the Spanish, and the Roman ones, led by the Holy Father who kneels there and lights a lamp. It has been a hundred years since he was buried under the title of the architect of God.

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The tower of Jesus of the Sagrada Família and Catalonia are blessed as a beacon of Christendom. Pope Leo XIV, predominantly using Catalan in the homily and blessing, crowned Antoni Gaudí's masterpiece this Wednesday with the blessing of the tower of Jesus, coinciding with the centenary of the death of the "architect of God", as the pontiff defined him.

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Despite the undisputed prominence of Pope Leo XIV, the figure of the day is Antoni Gaudí. His exuberant imagination, the firmness of his judgment, his extraordinary aesthetic sense, his mastery of calculation and the use of materials, have given him a place at the forefront of the history of contemporary architecture. Joan Maragall said that Gaudí was the poet of stone.

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Today at half past twelve Pope Leo XIV lands at El Prat airport and begins a stay of 36 hours in our country, packed with events: the crowd at Lluís Companys stadium this afternoon, the symbolism of the climb to Montserrat, the message of meeting with prisoners at Can Brians, and the highlight, tomorrow around 9 pm, of the blessing of the Jesus tower of the Sagrada Família, which for a few weeks has crowned the basilica at 172.5 meters above the city of Barcelona. And on Thursday morning, Leo XIV will depart for the Canary Islands.

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The day has arrived. Pope Leo XIV landed this Tuesday in Catalonia and in his first homily from Barcelona Cathedral, he has already made several parts in Catalan. Beyond starting and closing in the country's language, he has delivered entire paragraphs, although the use of Spanish has been predominant – a language he knows well and which marked his life as a bishop in Peru. The pontiff stated that "Barcelona is called the capital of Catalonia" and spiced up the claim with the fact that this gives "Barcelonians and Catalans" a "special vocation" to become "builders of unity".

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The dance has begun. The Barcelona City Council and the residents of the Sagrada Família have formally opened negotiations to close one of the city's hottest urban planning fronts: the future of the Glòria staircase. According to various sources who spoke to ARA, the first official meeting was held last Thursday between the municipal government – led by Jordi Valls, the councilor for Eixample – and representatives of the Sagrada Família neighborhood association and the platform of those affected by the construction of the temple.

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“We feel very fortunate to work here. The Sagrada Familia is an icon and a dream for any trade related to construction. But it is also a great responsibility, not only because of the history and symbolism of the building, but also for all the people we have under our feet every day”. These are the words of Joan Montoya, one of the three crane operators in charge of shaping the Sagrada Familia. For almost two decades, the three of them have been working hand in hand to finish one of the most anticipated architectural works of the century as soon as possible. “The truth is that it is a privilege to work on this project and, as crane operators, to be able to operate cranes of this capacity and work at such a height”, admits José Encina. Together with Rufino Galán, they form a team that has seen the Sagrada Familia in almost every possible form. They have shared anecdotes, challenges, and above all, maneuvers. Many maneuvers. The vast majority are millimeter-precise, requiring great coordination between them to move and place large-sized pieces. Each of their movements helps to materialize the dream that Antoni Gaudí had 144 years ago.

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144 years ago the Sagrada Familia began and for more than 100 years it has been the undisputed symbol of Barcelona. If the Eiffel Tower defines Paris and the Empire State defines New York, there is no doubt that what defines Barcelona, and almost Catalonia, is this basilica which has recently become the tallest religious building in Europe. Next Tuesday, the 10th, it will be a century since Antoni Gaudí, the architect who dreamed it up and designed it, died. In fact, he dedicated 43 years of his life to it and is buried there. Pope Leo XIV will commemorate his centenary with a mass, in which he will also bless the Tower of Jesus, the central and tallest of the complex.

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